When quite a child, I played about the boats, and I know how to handle an oar or a sail as well as the best Ponantais sailor." The latter did not lie much more than the first, for he had rowed on board his majesty's galleys six years, at Ciotat.

Two others were more frank: they confessed honestly that they had served on board a vessel as soldiers as punishment, and did not blush for it.
D'Artagnan found himself, then, the leader of ten men of war and four sailors, having at once an land army and a sea force, which would have carried the pride of Planchet to its height, if Planchet had known the details.
Nothing was now left but arranging the general orders, and D'Artagnan gave them with precision.

He enjoined his men to be ready to set out for the Hague, some following the coast which leads to Breskens, others the road to Antwerp.

The rendezvous was given, by calculating each day's march, a fortnight from that time, upon the chief place at the Hague.
D'Artagnan recommended his men to go in couples, as they liked best, from sympathy.

He himself selected from among those with the least disreputable look, two guards whom he had formerly known, and whose only faults were being drunkards and gamblers.